Radio Havana Cuba, November 23, 1999 Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit CUBANEWS FROM RADIO HAVANA CUBA E-mail: rhc@radiohc.org http://www.radiohc.org The following items are taken from Radio Havana Cuba's news service for Tuesday, November 23, 1999. Today's stories: 1.- ACTIVITIES GEARING UP FOR SECOND SUMMIT OF HEADS OF STATE AND GOVERNMENTS OF AFRICA, CARIBBEAN AND PACIFIC GROUP 2.- WORKSHOP ON PHILOSOPHIC STUDIES TO BE HELD IN HAVANA 3.- DELEGATION OF BRITISH BUSINESS EXECUTIVES VISITS CUBA 4.- 10th CUBA-JAPAN ECONOMIC MEETING WRAPS UP IN HAVANA 5.- WATER WORKS IN EASTERN HOLGUIN PROVINCE BENEFIT TENS OF THOUSANDS ACTIVITIES GEARING UP FOR SECOND SUMMIT OF HEADS OF STATE AND GOVERNMENTS OF AFRICA, CARIBBEAN AND PACIFIC GROUP Santo Domingo, November 23(RHC)-- In the Dominican Republic, activities are gearing up for the Second Summit of Heads of State and Governments of the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific Group, known as the ACP. The leaders of the 71 member-nations will meet in Santo Domingo on Thursday and Friday this week. Among the items on the agenda for the important upcoming meeting will be renewal of the Lome Convention, an agreement on preferential trade and cooperation with the European Union. The countries making up the ACP -- former European colonies of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific -- will also discuss a common position to take to the ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization. That meeting is scheduled for next week in Seattle, Washington, in the United States. Cuba is an observer to the ACP and a full member of the World Trade Organization, the WTO. Preparatory meetings have already begun in Santo Domingo and advance teams and some delegations are beginning to arrive in the capital of the Dominican Republic. WORKSHOP ON PHILOSOPHIC STUDIES TO BE HELD IN HAVANA Havana, November 23(RHC)-- A workshop will be held later this week in the Cuban capital to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the assassination of Rosa Luxemburg. The Havana Philosophy Institute's Julio Antonio Mella Marxist Studies Department, the University of Havana's Faculty of Philosophy and History and the Philosophic Research Institute will hold the Cuban-German workshop on philosophic studies named Rosa Luxemburg: Communist Activist. The meeting will take place November 25th and 26th at the Philosophy Institute's headquarters. The event will gather together renowned German and Cuban philosophers, who will analyze current problems affecting theoretical principles developed by Rosa Luxemburg and other Marxist theoreticians. Organizers told reporters in the Cuban capital that this will be a unique opportunity to pay homage to one of the most outstanding leaders of the international Communist movement, who dedicated her entire life to the cause of the oppressed. DELEGATION OF BRITISH BUSINESS EXECUTIVES VISITS CUBA Havana, November 23(RHC)-- A delegation of British executives, headed by the Vice President of the British Company Trade International, Sir Martin Laing, is in Cuba to promote British investment in the Cuban economy, despite Washington's anti-Cuba Helms-Burton Law. Sir Laing and the delegation accompanying him, made up of 10 business executives from the tourism and construction sectors, will meet with Cuban Minister for Foreign Investment and Economic Cooperation, Marta Lomas, and Transportation Minister Alvaro Perez, as well as with top officials from the island's tourism sector. The British business delegation will also visit the world famous Partagas tobacco factory. 10th CUBA-JAPAN ECONOMIC MEETING WRAPS UP IN HAVANA Havana, November 23(RHC)-- The Presidents of the Cuba-Japan Economic Conference, Ricardo Cabrisas and Hiroshi Mitsuzuka have signed an agreement to strengthen bilateral trade between Tokyo and Havana. The protocol was in the framework of the 10th Japan-Cuba Economic Meeting which wrapped up Monday in the Cuban capital. Speaking with journalists, Ricardo Cabrisas, who is also Cuba's Foreign Trade Minister, said that conditions exist for the Japanese economic sector to participate in programs aimed at the Cuban economy's recovery. He pointed to ship building, agriculture and the sugar industry as sectors for possible Japanese investment. Cabrisas added that the current commercial exchange between Cuba and Japan amounts to some 100 million dollars, although bilateral trade could potentially amount to 600 million dollars. At the closing ceremony of the 10th Japan-Cuba Economic Meeting, the Cuban Council of State granted the Friendship Award posthumously to the former President of the Japan-Cuba Economic Conference, the late Yoshihiro Inayama, for his contribution to the strengthening of bilateral relations between the two countries. WATER WORKS IN EASTERN HOLGUIN PROVINCE BENEFIT TENS OF THOUSANDS Holguin, November 23(RHC)-- Hydraulic works conducted with Norwegian Cooperation benefit more than 24,000 people in rural areas of eastern Holguin province. A network of 18 aqueducts have begun functioning over a five-year period, as part of a Norwegian assistance program with the Cuban National Association of Small Farmers. The program also provides for the irrigation of fertile lands. Another two artificial waterways are to be completed in the Sagua de Tanamo municipality, also in Holguin province, where an integral rural development program is being implemented to encourage people who have moved to the cities to return to their farms. ------------------------------------------------------------- RADIO HAVANA CUBA'S VIEWPOINT Tuesday, 23 November 1999 The Second Summit of Heads of State and Governments of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group -- the ACP -- gets underway on Thursday in the Dominican Republic. Attending the summit will be leaders of 71 countries of the three regions - former European colonies. The ACP Summit comes as two extremely important events are about to occur. Events of great significance for those countries that are attempting to struggle together to obtain better results in their international economic relations. The ACP nations have been discouraged by the prevailing unequal exchange and now seek to strengthen their positions in the World Trade Organization that will hold a ministerial meeting in city of Seattle, Washington, next week. The nations of the ACP Group are interested in a new agreement with the European Union that would allow them to extend preferential access of their products on the European market for ten more years. That length of time would be the most that the WTO could accept. The principal concern of the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries is to obtain technology and markets to be able to truely undertake a process of socio-economic development and not in the way the United States and some of its allies want to impose the so-called "assistance" and "cooperation" in the Third World under the rules of neo-liberal economic globalization. Some Latin American countries that have been living under this type of economic globalization have begun to wake up after a lethargy that has left them in a severe domestic crisis. The same happens in Africa and the Pacific. Through the Lome Convention on special economic treatment of this group of disfavored countries, the European Union cautiously operates since it is faced with a powerful competitor that will not easily renounce its hegemonic position. Cuban President Fidel Castro, who recently presided over the 9th Ibero-American Summit successfully held in the Cuban capital, has been invited to the ACP meeting which begins on Thursday in the Dominican Republic. Cuba hopes to take part in the next European Union Cooperation Convention which includes a series of Lome agreements that began in 1975. Under those agreements, the 71 nations that make up the ACP Group sell their domestic products duty free on the European market. Cuba, which has been submitted by the United States to a severe economic blockade for nearly 40 years, is interested in diversifying its commercial and financial relations in order to free itself from Washington's unilateral economic aggressions. [c] 1999, Radio Habana Cuba All rights reserved Articles cannot be reproduced, reprinted or published in any system without the consent of RHC. This prohibition includes the distribution of this material via Usenet News, "bulletin board" services, e-mail lists, print media, radio and television. For the complete RADIO HAVANA CUBA NEWSCAST and other features, please write for our daily broadcast schedule. We welcome your comments and suggestions. For further information, contact us at: Postal Address: Radio Havana Cuba P.O.Box 6240 Havana, Cuba Telephone: (53) (7) 791053 Fax: (53) (7) 795007 E-mail: rhc@radiohc.org WWW: http://www.radiohc.org rhc-eng-1622 1999-Nov-23 16:30:38